New York City born and raised actor-playwright-screenwriter-arts educator. He is a graduate of The William Esper Studio and a member of The LAByrinth Theater company and The Actor's Studio Playwright-Director Unit. As an actor he has worked with Luna Stage, Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Ridiculous Theatrical Company under the artistic direction of Everett Quinton, The Leftovers (HBO), The Children of Hip Hop (Queens World Film Festival Nominated Best Ensemble Narrative Feature.) His work as a playwright has been presented by Repertorio Espanol, HERE, Cherry Lane Theatre, Theatre for a New City, Chicago's Urban Theatre company, Santa Ana's Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble, San Diego Repertory's Amigo's de Rep, Classical Theatre of Harlem. He is a two-time Semi-Finalist for The Princess Grace Playwright award/New Dramatist. As an arts educator he's worked with Queens Theatre in The Park, The Public Theatre's Summer Shakeup (Shakespeare program for teens), The LAByrinth Theater Company's Intensive Ensemble and the Writers Guild East Initiative. Most recently his original screenplay, Los Abandonados/The Abandoned won the best feature screenplay award at the 2022 12th Annual International Puerto Rican Heritage Film Festival. Published works include the plays, "Los Embrujados/The Haunted Ones" for Original Works Publishing, "Prospect Avenue", "The Spirit, The Body & The Blood", "In Da Boogie Down", "Full Moon Inside a Red Sky" for Next Stage Press, the Smith & Kraus Anthology series, The Best Women's Stage Monologues 2023 & 2024, The Best Ten-Minute Plays 2024, The Best Men's Stage Monologues 2024.
The Newton Agency, LLC.
Agent: Christopher Newton
Email: thenewtonagencyllc@gmail.com
Office 813-367-2077 / Cell: 912-695-2277
Plays
After five years away from his home, his family, his young son, the life he knew, incarcerated for a crime he did commit, Rudis Soto returns to his old neighborhood a different man, one trying to reconnect to the family he left behind in pain and loss, but in order for him to do that he must first confront the oneperson he fears the most, himself.
When his mother dies, Ramon returns to his old neighborhood to reconnect with the estranged wife and teenage son he abandoned years ago. he's ready to pick things up where they left off, but his family has moved on - and they have no intention of repeating the past.
The Spirit, the Body & the Blood is an intergenerational story about the possibilities of reconciliation, unconditional forgiveness and a past that refuses to be left behind and about a family trying to hold on to what it means to be a family.
An aging super light-weight club fighter, Roberta “La Potencia” Montoya after a devastating knock-out at the hands of a faster and much younger, Terri “Sweet & Sour” Jones must come to terms with the realization that she has come to the end of the road of the only kind of life skill she’s ever known, but her long-time manager, Joe Pacheco might have other plans for her future; to squeeze out one more fight for one last big payday to pay off a life threatening debt.
Three desperate inner-city teens, Wilton Fernandez, Yazmin Garcia, and Jamal Faulkner find themselves at a crossroads in their young lives and must choose which path not to take. For Wilton, it’s a return home to a family that fears him and the hope for them not to. For Yazmin, it’s a search for a place where she can feel save, protected, and loved. For Jamal it’s simply looking for a place to belong and to find who his true self is, but at what cost? Because in the South Bronx for these three teens the struggle to survive where not living beyond today is just another heartbreak and gunshot away.
November is the season of endings and beginnings. It is also the time of Esbat, where one is free to frolic and amuse oneself, but it is also a time when anything you are holding onto, for which you’re hoping for some kind of resolution from can finally be released from ones soul and into the night air and it is on one such night underneath a full moon inside a red sky is where at Sacco’s Café-Bistro, Lisa Crosco and Anthony Santoro with the help of a magical and mystical Maitre d’, these two strangers with wounded hearts will discover that the possibilities of true love just might be only one single fallen snowflake away.
A group of childhood friends do their best to navigate the maze of their day to day adult working class life, through love and loss, maintaining a household, a roof over their heads, food on the table, raising children and staying employed while living with the crippling fears of being just a few paychecks away from finding themselves out on the streets and never getting the opportunity to fulfill their hopes and dreams of a better life.
From a makeshift Army call center in Fort Hamilton, Brooklyn to the far away desert city of Fallujah, Iraq. Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, and Soldiers, their voices filled with loss, confusion, loneliness, hurt, anger and hope, try to make sense of the ever-changing landscape around them during a questionable time of an never ending war and a world where for some, home is nothing more than a disappearing distant memory they are desperately trying to hold on to in order to survive while for others on the front lines between life and death the idea of home and family is nothing more than a blur.
For a group of working class families and desperate dreamers in the Frederick Douglass Housing Projects, the struggle to hold on till morning is a way of life.
Successes
My play, "W.A.C. Iraq" which was originally developed by The LAByrinth Theater Company and later produced by The Breath of Fire Latina Theatre Ensemble will be published by Next Stage Press in the Fall of 2024.
My work as a playwright will be included in the following anthologies from Smith & Kraus publishers:
The Best Women's Stage Monologue's (2024)
The Best Men's Stage Monologue 's (2024)
The Best Ten-Minute Plays (2024)
Publication date is December 2024.
"La Potencia" presented as part of LAByrinth Theater Company's Barn Series at 59e59, NYC.
A monologue from my play, La Potencia will be included in Smith & Kraus collection "The Best Woman's Monologue's for the Stage 2023". The collection will be published in December 2023.
My play, "Full Moon Inside a Red Sky" will be published by Next Stage Press in April 2023.